Many professional organizations have a fee schedule structured to account for a variety of disbursements incurred on behalf of clients. Photocopy charges and facsimile expenses are typical disbursements that are allocated to client accounts. Keeping a precise record of those charges is a difficult challenge because the transactions conducted on the photocopier or facsimile machine are numerous. Yet, this task is an essential one in order to avoid loss of revenue due to improper allocation of costs.
The use of cost recovery equipment is a solution adopted by many professional organizations. Under this approach, cost recovery equipment is installed within the organization in order to limit and control access to office equipment, including photocopiers, printers, facsimile machines and scanners. Typically, the cost recovery equipment requires user level authentication before a device can be used to perform a job, such as the printing or photocopying of an 80-page document. In addition to authenticating users, the cost recovery equipment can be designed to require additional information from a user before a job can be performed on a device, such as a description of the work and a client number for billing purposes.
Components of cost recovery equipment for multifunctional photocopier devices fall into one of three different categories:
1. Embedded software on the device itself;
2. External single-function hardware;
3. External multi-function hardware.
Whether the cost recovery equipment is implemented in software, hardware or both, it is always divided into two distinct functions, namely: 1) authentication and usage monitoring; and 2) device control. The portion of the cost recovery equipment that performs authentication and usage monitoring is referred to as the “Master”, while the portion that actually controls operation of a device is referred to as the “Slave”. Regardless of the particular design of the cost recovery equipment, there is always one Master and a minimum of one Slave controlled by the Master. In some cases, a single Master controls many Slaves.
Within a professional organization in which some implementation of cost recovery equipment controls the multi-functional photocopier devices, users can not access a particular photocopier device without first being authenticated by the Master. In order to be authenticated, users must typically present themselves at a fixed Master apparatus, which may be the particular photocopier device, some other photocopier device or a designated terminal, among other possibilities.
Over the past few years, the increased popularity and use of scanning has driven a change in the types of multi-functional photocopier devices that professional organizations are purchasing. Basically, there has been a movement away from expensive workgroup photocopier devices (each supporting 10-15 people), towards smaller personal photocopier devices (each supporting 1-4 people). Professional organizations are purchasing three to five small personal photocopier devices to replace one large workgroup photocopier device. This change in office equipment is forcing a change in the cost recovery solution marketplace. It is no longer affordable for professional organizations to buy an expensive controller for each photocopier device in order to implement a cost recovery solution.
One existing solution to the recent changes in the cost recovery marketplace is to provide hardware-free, software-based cost recovery equipment, which is less expensive for the professional organizations. The cost recovery equipment therefore consists solely of software embedded in each photocopier device. Although seemingly simple and relatively inexpensive, embedded cost recovery software for a photocopier device is a custom project that must be developed and completed jointly by a cost recovery vendor and the manufacturer of the photocopier device. Unfortunately, since photocopier devices are frequently changed, updated or upgraded, and offer little flexibility in the types of functions and features they can deliver in terms of cost recovery, the development and maintenance of the embedded software is complicated. It may also be limited in terms of the possible features that can be incorporated into the cost recovery equipment.
Another solution is the purchase of cheaper control terminals by the professional organizations. Unfortunately, unless the cost recovery vendors lower the sale prices of their terminals, cheaper terminals typically can not deliver the same feature set and productivity as the higher end terminals. Furthermore, regardless of the price of the terminals, they occupy physical space within the office space of the professional organization, which is becoming more and more rare, such that the physical presence of these control terminals is less desirable.
The background information provided above clearly indicates that there exists a need in the industry to provide an improved cost recovery system and method for walk-up office equipment, such as multi-functional photocopier devices.